Despondency Quotes

• Measure yourself by your best moments, not by your worst. We are too prone to judge ourselves by our moments of despondency and depression.

  Robert A. Johnson

  Inspirational, Depression, Self Esteem

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• I thought of Chatterton, the marvellous boy, The sleepless soul that perished in his pride; Of him who walked in glory and in joy, Following his plough, along the mountain-side. By our own spirits we are deified; We Poets in our youth begin in gladness, But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

  William Wordsworth

  Pride, Boys, Joy

  'Resolution and Independence' (1807) st. 7

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• Aim at perfection in everything, though in most things it is unattainable. However, they who aim at it, and persevere, will come much nearer to it than those whose laziness and despondency make them give it up as unattainable.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Giving, Perfection, Laziness

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Eugenia Stanhope (1827). “Letters Written by the Earl of Chesterfield to His Son”, p.185

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• Gloom and despondency have never defeated adversity. Trying times need courage and resilience. Our strength as a people is not tested during the best of times.

  Thabo Mbeki

  Adversity, People, Resilience

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• There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire; it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.

  George Eliot

  Jealousy, Passion, Fire

  George Eliot (1994). “Middlemarch”, p.175, Wordsworth Editions

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• Despondency is not religion, whatever else it may be.

  Swami Vivekananda

  May

  Swami Vivekananda (2016). “Addresses on Bhakti Yoga: Art of living”, p.9, editionNEXT.com

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• The greatest pride, or the greatest despondency, is the greatest ignorance of one's self.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Ignorance, Pride, Self

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• Ours is not a poor country and even though we are now a poor people, there should be no room for the despondency that has settled on large sections of the population.

  John Kufuor

  Country, People, Population

  John Agyekum Kufuor (2001*). “Towards a golden age of business: selected speeches of H. E. Mr. John Agyekum Kufuor, January-December, 2001”

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• Only trust me! You have fallen into a fit of despondency and there is not the least need! In fact, nothing could be more fatal, in any predicament! It encourages one to suppose that there is nothing to be done, when a little resolution is all that is wanted to bring matters to a happy conclusion.

  Georgette Heyer

  Needs, Done, Littles

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• We Poets in our youth begin in gladness; But thereof come in the end despondency and madness.

  William Wordsworth

  Youth, Madness, Poet

  "Resolution and Independence" l. 43 (1807)

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• In the lottery of life there are more prizes drawn than blanks, and to one misfortune there are fifty advantages. Despondency is the most unprofitable feeling a man can indulge in.

  Thomas De Witt Talmage

  Gratitude, Men, Indulge In

  Thomas De Witt Talmage (1892). “Brilliants”

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• One receives as reward for much ennui, despondency, boredom -such as a solitude without friends, books, duties, passions must bring with it -those quarter-hours of profoundest contemplation within oneself and nature. He who completely entrenches himself against boredom also entrenches himself against himself: he will never get to drink the strongest refreshing draught from his own innermost fountain.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Book, Passion, Boredom

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• I cannot forgive a scholar his homeless despondency.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Forgiving, Homeless, Scholar

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Illustrated)”, p.2786, Delphi Classics

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• Then we are assured by Sartre that owing to the final disappearance of God our liberty is absolute! At this the entire audience waves its hat or claps its hands. But this natural enthusiasm is turned abruptly into something much less buoyant when it is learnt that this liberty weighs us down immediately with tremendous responsibilities. We now have to take all God's worries on our shoulders -now that we are become men like gods. It is at this point that the Anxiety and Despondency begin, ending in utter despair.

  Wyndham Lewis

  God, Responsibility, Men

  Wyndham Lewis (1989). “The Essential Wyndham Lewis: An Introduction to His Work”, Andre Deutsch Limited

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• To believe a business impossible is the way to make it so. How many feasible projects have miscarried through despondency, and been strangled in their birth by a cowardly imagination.

  Jeremy Collier

  Believe, Imagination, Way

  Jeremy COLLIER (the Nonjuror.), J. E. (1838). “Pearls of Great Price: or, Maxims, reflections, characters and thoughts, on miscellaneous subjects ... Selected from the works of the Rev. Jeremy Collier by the editor of “Sir William Jones's Discourses,” etc. [The editor's preface signed: J. E., i.e. James Elmes.]”, p.30

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• To a winner, complacency and overconfidence can be destructive. To losers, desperation and despondency are just as harmful.

  Bill Walsh

  Softball, Sports, Motivation

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• Neither the depth of despondency nor the height of euphoria tells you how long either will last.

  Thomas Sowell

  Long, Depth, Height

  Thomas Sowell (2013). “Ever Wonder Why?: and Other Controversial Essays”, p.334, Hoover Press

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• Despondency is ingratitude; hope is God's worship.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Hope, Worship, Ingratitude

  Henry Ward Beecher (1887). “Patriotic Addresses in America and England from 1850 to 1885, on Slavery, the Civil War and the Development of Civil Liberty in the United States”

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• Men ought to know that from nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations. And by this, in an especial manner, we acquire wisdom and knowledge, and see and hear and know what are foul and what are fair, what are bad and what are good, what are sweet and what are unsavory…. And by the same organ we become mad and delirious, and fears and terrors assail us….All these things we endure from the brain when it is not healthy….In these ways I am of the opinion that the brain exercises the greatest power in the man.

  Hippocrates

  Sports, Sweet, Laughter

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• There was no despondency when she fell asleep that night; nor was there hope when she awoke in the morning.

  Kate Chopin

  Morning, Night

  Kate Chopin (2011). “The Awakening and Other Writings”, p.163, Broadview Press

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• The despondency that follows makes me feel somewhat like a shipwrecked man who spies a sail, sees himself saved, and suddenly remembers that the lens of his spyglass has a flaw, a blurred spot -- the sail he has seen.

  Jean Genet

  Men, Spy, Lenses

  Jean Genet (1994). “Our Lady of the Flowers”, p.58, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• The warrior of light knows that everything around him - his victories, his defeats, his enthusiasm and his despondency - form part of his Good Fight.

  Paulo Coelho

  Life, Inspiration, Fighting

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• The great chasm between the thing I say, and the thing I would say, would be quite dispiriting to me, in spite even of such kindnesses as yours, if the desire did not master the despondency.

  Elizabeth Barrett Browning

  Kindness, Desire, Would Be

  Robert Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Browning (2009). “The Letters of Robert Browning and Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 1845-1846”, p.17, The Floating Press

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• I ought not to doubt the steadiness of your affection. Yet such is the inconsistency of real love, that it is always awake to suspicion, however unreasonable; always requiring new assurances from the object of its interest, and thus it is, that i always feel revived, as by a new convinction, when your words tell me I am dear to you; and wanting these, I relapse into doubt and often into despondency.

  Ann Radcliffe

  Real, Doubt, Affection

  Ann Radcliffe (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Ann Radcliffe (Illustrated)”, p.716, Delphi Classics

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• Life is a warfare; and he who easily desponds deserts a double duty--he betrays the noblest property of man, which is dauntless resolution; and he rejects the providence of that All-Gracious Being who guides and rules the universe.

  Jane Porter

  Men, Warfare, Desert

  Sir Philip Sidney, Jane Porter (1807). “Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney: With Remarks”, p.159

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